cj#339> Noam Chomsky – Media Power

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>>> Item number 5912, dated 95/12/12
Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:04:43 +1000
Sender: Progressive News & Views List <•••@••.•••>
From: •••@••.•••
Subject: Noam Chomsky -Media Power (from CAQ)
From: •••@••.••• Subject: Noam Chomsky -Media Power
(from CAQ) Pt 1
JC -What the USA needs is Ralph Nader as President -to squash
the media barons and lift all US illegal blockades; Noam Chomsky
as a Special Person to replace the CIA, Pentagon, USAID, US
Interests Section and Mafia. The world would then have a chance to
recover from the death and degradation achieved by the sections
replaced. These two little changes would reduce world tension and
world terrorism -mainly US terrorism that is- by 90%. However
Noam's words are perfectly clear -
"There are chilling prospects in the deliberate US policy of
driving the country toward a kind of Third World model, with
sectors of great privilege, growing numbers of people sinking into
poverty, or real misery, and a superfluous population confined in
slums or expelled to the rapidly expanding prison system. Lurking
not too deeply in the shadows is the threat of movements of a
fascist character, with a populist streak imbued with a religious
extremism that is a striking feature of American culture.
"Few are aware that the Pentagon system is largely a welfare
system for the rich, catering to welfare freaks like Newt
Gingrich, who brings more federal subsidies to his district than
any other suburban county outside the federal system itself, while
his wealthy constituents self-righteously denounce the nanny
state, and commentators admire those who know only how to feed at
the public trough. Noam quotes John Dewey -"Politics is the shadow
cast on society by big business, and while that continues, the
attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance."
"The scale and intensity of media and business propaganda
crusades is rarely appreciated, and little studied. What has been
unearthed confirms the judgement of the late Alex Carey,
Australian social scientist who pioneered the investigation of
corporate propaganda, including his study of "Americanization"
campaigns, from which I drew earlier. "The 20th Century has been
characterised by 3 developments of great political importance",
Carey wrote in a 1978 paper: "the growth of democracy; the growth
of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda as a
means of protecting corporate power against democracy."
"Corporations that now dominate domestic and global
economies, recognised the need to control the 'Public mind' and
engineer consent by propaganda. In 'Animal Farm' George O.
observed, "In free societies, unpopular ideas can be silenced, and
inconvenient facts kept dark, without an official ban." The
National Assoc'n of Manufacturers (NAM) warned that, "We are
definitely heading for adversity, unless the recognised political
power of the masses is directed to more proper channels." (To me,
that means continuous junk/violent/sex television, every kind of
sport, with massive financial rewards for the players, Pay TV
using the energy of that youth for profit, the print and news
media, soon the Internet, totally controlled by multi-billionaire
capitalists, so desperately afraid of the poor, and working class
social support. JC)
"In 1947 a huge campaign began to win the everlasting battle
for the minds of men. NAM Chairman stated that only the tools of
the PR Industry were powerful enough to stem the current drift
towards socialism. Millions of pamphlets, a mass of business films
and a staggering amount of other propaganda, were a compulsory and
highly successful indocrination, using even the entertainment
industry -targeting viewers, Schools, Unis and Churches." (cont) [?]
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Posted by Richard K. Moore <•••@••.•••>
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